THE CHARACTERS
Lives divided by worlds, generations and loyalties, drawn together by one secret.
OVERVIEW
Across different worlds, generations and loyalties, the lives of seemingly unconnected people become entangled in a story much older than any of them.
Some inherit responsibilities they barely understand. Others choose their path, while a few simply find themselves caught in events already in motion. Friends, enemies, Keepers, Initiators and members of the Order each carry their own history, convictions and secrets.
Together, their choices shape what follows.
A Story without people is just a list of words
The Street Had No Name is filled with people whose lives cross in unexpected ways, sometimes separated by generations, sometimes by worlds. Priests, rabbis, wanderers, soldiers and those who belong somewhere in between all have their part to play.
What follows is only a glimpse of a few of the characters at the heart of the story. The rest are waiting in the pages.
ALMANDA, André
BENELLI, Alfredo
Alfredo Benelli is a young monk who seems, at first, an unlikely man to be travelling through occupied France. Quiet and self-assured, he has the easy manner of someone accustomed to journeys, strangers and difficult situations. There is considerably more to him than his simple habit suggests.
The Church has prepared Alfredo for the possibility of the Scroll appearing for years. When that day finally comes, he is sent to find Solomon Bidderman and help him reach safety. Somewhere along the road, duty becomes friendship and the wandering monk finds himself bound to the old rabbi and a secret far older than either of their faiths.
BIDDERMAN, Solomon
Solomon Bidderman has been the rabbi of Sainte-Bazeille for forty years. By 1942 the Jewish families he served are gone, taken in a single night, and their synagogue lies wrecked. Solomon remains because he carries something that cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.
He is the Keeper of the Scroll, entrusted with a secret protected for more than two thousand years. When an accident reveals that the Scroll is more than ancient legend, Solomon is forced to flee France disguised as a priest. With a young monk beside him and forces already searching for what he carries, an old rabbi begins a journey he could never have imagined.
IMOJINE, Sakara
Sakara Imojine is the drabardi of the Romi and leader of the Wardens, though neither age nor position has dulled the sharpness that brought her there. At seventy-two she remains a handsome, formidable woman, quite capable of remembering when young men once found reasons to linger near her caravan.
From her rocking chair, usually with a pipe in hand, Sakara watches over far more than the life of her own people. The Wardens carry an ancient responsibility and she knows better than most what is at stake when events surrounding the Scroll begin to move again.
IMOJINE, Rosa
Rosa is one of the Romi and seems entirely at home in the ordinary life of the camp, cooking, serving and sharing in the work around her. There is little about her at first glance to suggest that Sakara sees something more.
Andre certainly does. He is thoroughly smitten, though Rosa has made it quite clear that his feelings are not returned. Pieter fares little better, although a smile from Rosa is apparently enough to leave him wondering. Beneath her easy manner, however, lies a quiet strength and a growing responsibility that may one day take her far beyond the campfire.
MITXELENA, Usoa
Usoa is a young Basque resistance fighter, practical, capable and entirely at home in the mountains where Solomon Bidderman finds himself increasingly dependent on people and customs he barely understands. She carries a shotgun because these are dangerous times, but there is warmth beneath the toughness.
Alfredo is her man, something Usoa seems to understand before the wandering monk quite catches up. Her affection for Solomon grows differently. He begins as someone to be protected and becomes Abe Solomon, folded quietly into the strange little family forming around them.
For a man who has lost almost everyone, Usoa gives him something he thought the war had taken for good, the simple feeling that he belongs.
MONT CLASSON, Pierre
Pierre Mont Classon is the Bishop of Lyon and Solomon Bidderman’s lifelong friend. Long before either man carried the responsibilities of bishop or rabbi, they studied history together, beginning a friendship that endured despite the very different paths their faiths would take them.
When Solomon reaches Lyon with the Scroll, he comes to someone he trusts completely. Pierre gives his old friend sanctuary and helps prepare the next stage of a dangerous journey through occupied France. His time in the story is brief, but the friendship between the two men gives Solomon something increasingly rare in 1942, a place where he knows he is safe.
VICAREL, Peter
Peter Vicarel is a Jesuit teacher of science in Philadelphia, a practical man whose relationship with faith has always been more about belonging than belief. Raised without any real sense of family, he found a home of sorts in the Church, though never quite the certainty expected of him.
When the world around him collapses, Peter follows a stolen Scroll into a street with no name and finds himself Somewhere.
What begins as an obligation to a dying rabbi soon becomes something far more personal. Among the Romi he finds an unexpected familiarity, a people and a place that seem less foreign to him than the world he left behind.
VON TRIFFEL, Manfred
Manfred von Triffel is a man of the Order and, by 1942, moves comfortably through the highest levels of Nazi Germany. Immaculately dressed, strikingly handsome and possessed of the quiet confidence of someone accustomed to power, he wears the Party badge but his allegiance reaches considerably further back than the regime it represents.
The search for the Scroll brings Manfred into Solomon Bidderman’s story from the other side. He understands what Solomon carries and why it matters. For Manfred, the war consuming Europe is immediate, but the Order has interests measured across generations and he has no intention of allowing an old rabbi to stand in their way.
VON TRIFFEL, Klaus
